312 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



creek in the mainland has excavated a circular water hole 

 in a soft rock, brick red in colour. This hole is the local 

 thunder factory, and the blacks were wont to hang fish 

 hooks across it from pieces of lawyer cane, with the idea of 

 ensnaring the young thunder before it had the chance of 

 becoming big and formidable. 



THE ORACLE 



Divination by means of the intestines of animals is 

 practised by the blacks in some parts of North Queensland. 

 A young gin died suddenly on the lower Johnstone River. 

 Immediately after, the young men of the camp went out 

 hunting, bringing back a wallaby. The entrails were 

 removed, and an old woman the Atropos of the camp 

 stretched them between her fingers in half-yard lengths, 

 simultaneously pronouncing the title of a tribe in the dis- 

 trict. The tribe, the name of which was being uttered as 

 the gut parted, was denounced as the source of the witch- 

 craft which had occasioned the untimely death of the gin. 

 Vengeance followed as a matter of course. 



A REAL LETTER 



Sam, a boy living in the Russell River scrub, spoke thus 

 to his master : 



" One fella boy, Dick, he come up fight along me four 

 days." 



" How you know, Sam ? " asked the boss. 



" Dick, he bin make 'em this one letter," replied Sam, 

 picking up a palm leaf from which all the leaflets save 

 seven, had been torn. Three of the seven had been turned 

 down at the terminal point, and Sam continued his explana- 

 tion. " He no come Monday, he no come Tuesday, he no 

 come Wednesday, he come Thursday," indicating the first 

 upright leaflet. 



Sam said that he had an outstanding quarrel with Dick 



